Thursday, October 14, 2010

Gas 2.0

Gas 2.0

Wicked-Looking Electric Trike Can Go 45 MPH

Posted: 14 Oct 2010 02:06 PM PDT

I’ll admit that sometimes, I make fun of people on motorized tricycles. I’m not talking about the pedal bikes here, but those big cruisers that are as wide as a car. I just don’t get it I guess, and I always thought they looked silly sitting in the middle of a pack of motorcycles. Then again, I don’t own a motorcycle…I’ve never even ridden one.

Then again, this ride is nothing like those silly emissions-spewing trikes. I would totally ride this wicked-looking motorized-tricycle, which has a range of 30 miles…and a top speed of 45 mph. Can you dig it?

I’m a huge advocate of electric motors because, unlike combustion motors, they make 100% torque at 0 rpm. Torque wins races, my friends, and I could see myself on one of these electric trikes, dipping down boulevards and alleys in some kind of futuristic, post-apocalyptic Running Man-esque race. This black beauty was designed by Josh Hadar, who has apprently made a name for himself designing these kinds  of outlandish bikes.

Powered by the sun, this bad boy has four lead-acid batteries powering a Mars electric motor putting out about 6.5 horsepower, which doesn’t sound like alot. Consider though that the frame is made from carbon steel, and besides the motor, batteries, and your body, there isn’t much else this bike has to move. It has a range of 30 miles, which is actually pretty damn impressive if you ask me, and a top speed of 45 mph. On a trike! That thing can seriously dip, and apparently it does some awesome wheelies too.

Imagine rolling up to work in one of these?

Source: Wired | Images: Josh Hadar

EPA Approves 15% Blend Of Ethanol In Gasoline

Posted: 14 Oct 2010 11:01 AM PDT

Ethanol is probably the single most controversial of alternative fuels. There are plenty of arguments against it. You’re taking away from food production, it isn’t as efficient as gasoline, so on and so forth. The big thing it has going for it though is that it isn’t oil. More corn in our cars means less oil from foreign countries…and that is a good thing, right?

A few days ago the EPA announced that it had approved the use of a blend of 15% ethanol and 85% gasoline for cars from 2007 and up. Is this a meaningful step in the right directio, or should they have gone farther?

Ethanol blends up to 10% (E-10) were first approved back in 1979…over thirty years ago. Much like the CAFE fuel standards, this number has not budged in decades. Now the EPA has approved the use of up-to 15% ethanol in cars made in 2007 or newer. That is all well and good…but is this going to cause confusion at the pump? Will people pull up to a pump and not know the difference between E-10 and E-15? My guess is yes…some people just need to be held by the hand all the time.

The 5% bump seems pretty insignificant to me. Most gas engines can run on ethanol just fine, the only difference being the rubber hoses and fuel pumps (ethanol has corrosive properties on certain rubbers used in cars). I doubt anybody filling up with E-15 fuel will experience engine failure in a car older than 2007…but that won’t stop people from freaking out. This isn’t a mandatory upgrade mind you…it just permits fuel retailers to sell a higher blend of ethanol, and they have to go through a whole registration process. So while in theory this could reduce our oil consumption by 5%, it probably won’t even come close. To me, it seems more like concession to the ethanol lobby. I’m not the biggest ethanol fan…but I’d rather we get our fuel from locally grown corn than shady foreign countries. Brazil has been running on 100% ethanol for a while now…I’d like to see the U.S. commit to at least 25% ethanol in our gas sometime in the near future. Now that would make a dent in our oil imports for sure.

I do wonder though what effect this will have in pricing…will E-15 be more or less expensive than E-10? That could certainly shape how many people shop for gas.

Source: Green Car Advisor

Motor Trend Claims Volt Gets 127 MPG, Not Quite True

Posted: 14 Oct 2010 08:50 AM PDT

I guess I am one of the lucky ones, because growing up, I always knew what I wanted to be. I wanted to write. It wasn’t until I got my driver’s license though that I figured out what I wanted to write about. Cars. I just love cars, and I would read every car magazine I could find cover to cover, pretending I didn’t hear my name called in the dentist’s office just so I could finish one more paragraph or page. I really used to idolize the writers at publications like Car & Driver and Motor Trend. Lately though…I guess you could say I’ve become jaded.

For one, I found out that many full-time auto journalists don’t even own a car. They simply go from one corporate loaner to the next, reviewing them and moving on to the next one. What kind of car guy are you if you don’t even own a car? And then there are omissions of truth…like Motor Trend claiming to get 127 mpg out of the Chevy Volt. Too bad they didn’t tell the whole story until a whole day later.

In their initial piece, titled “127 MPG: This Volt Story Must Be Told“, Motor Trend writer Johnny Lieberman goes on and on about how they romped and railed on the Chevy Volt, driving 299 miles, him and a fellow driver had used just 2.36 gallons of gas. I will admit initially, I was wowed, impressed, even shocked, especially after so many other outlets had claimed Volt gas mileage from between the upper 20′s to upper 30′s. 127 mpg? That is nothing short of amazing, blowing away any other car on the street. How is that possible?

Well, the devil is in the details. A day after the first post, Motor Trend released a follow-up story called “127 MPG: The Chevy Volt Dairies”, where they released their driving log. Turns out, they had got that 127 mpg figure over the course of three days, driving 214 miles in EV mode and just 84 miles in “charge sustaining” mode. To me, that is just not an accurate representation of real world mpg, because in reality the Volt got 36 mpg, not 127 mpg. It’s just like GM claiming the Volt got 230 mpg, because in a typical gas mileage testing function of 50 miles, 40 of those miles would be under electric power and not use any gas at all. I didn’t let GM off the hook for that, and I won’t let Motor Trend off the hook either.

In today’s age of minuscule attention spans and multi-tasking, a snappy headline like 127 mpg is sure to get page views. But to publish a story like that without 100% of the information up front and available just smacks of dishonesty and cozying up to GM close to the Volt’s launch.

Having said all of that, aI will say this about Motor Trend’s test. It represents what one might consider a “real world” commute. This is exactly how GM is marketing the car…as a commuter vehicle to use as little gas to get back and forth from work as possible. In this scenario the Volt certainly seems at home, and I imagine many commuters could see similar results. Still, it seems a little odd to me that Motor Trend would make a test that was essentially designed to optimize mileage. That is just fine, and technically the Volt really did go almost 300 miles on just 2.36 gallons of gas. But does this really represent 127 mpg? Not to me. For $40,000, I was hoping GM could do a bit better than 36 mpg in charge sustaining mode.

How about you guys? Do you feel deceived, or am I overreacting?

Source: Motor Trend
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